MissLady

New story, I don't know where it's going. It definitely involves two estranged relatives being brought together by death (I know cliché but whatever) I also just realized, that almost all my protagonists smoke, I guess I let them do it so I don't have to...that's good right? (Oh Who am I kidding they're fictional characters)

I crushed the remnants of my cigarette into the ground with point of by shoe, as if I was trying to make them disappear. Bobby could tell that I was nervous. He nudged me to the stoop and said, “It’s now or never kid.” For the first time I looked up, not that I really needed to. The house hadn’t changed since I left it. I was staring at the same ugly blue shudders and the patchy shingled roof, nothing had changed. The once grand Victorian was still run down and possibly even more solemn than it had been in my memories. As the sole of my shoe hit the top of the steps my legs urged me to turn around and run back into the car, I couldn’t face this, not yet.
Bobby was still right behind me willing me to take two more steps and place my hand over clunky, chipped, brass knocker. “Who uses doorknockers in this day and age?” I tried to joke, but Bobby saw through my tight smile and grimaced. I turned my head back around and focused on the huge knocker, hoping that the house would remain silent and no one would answer the door.
Even from the outside you could hear every sound in that old creaky house. The stairs groaned as someone walked down them with a brisk expectant pace. The groan was pulsated by a distinct “clack” of a stiletto meeting a hardwood floor. There was a woman on the other side of that door waiting for us. I had already imagined what she would look like: stern faced and severe with her hair pulled back into a tight bun or a sophisticated ponytail. She’d be wearing a charcoal grey suit with too-light hose and a crisp pair of black pumps.
The door opened, snapping me out of my trance-like state, but what I saw standing in front of me was the exact picture from my daydream, down to the brand new pumps. She was even carrying a legal pad and a Mont Blanc pen in her hand. “Ms. Carr? Hello I’m Angela Stone.” She stuck out her hand with her elbow fully extended expecting a handshake. “Hi” I said and walked past her into the house to take my shoes off.
Everything was exactly the same on the inside as well, except this time everything was eerily sterile and lifeless. To the left was a simple bronze statue of an angel, which was sitting on a deep mahogany hall table. Right above was an antique mirror framed in gold and accented with cascading silver ivy vines. I remember my brother and I were playing inside during a horrible snowstorm. He knocked me against the wall a little too hard, and the mirror came crashing down on my head. My mother made me pick up every piece of that mirrored glass while I bared her constant castigation not to mention a concussion. After that I was never allowed in the foyer alone.
I peered into the repaired mirror, to see any signs of the accident, but it was good as new. Instead my reflection showed a disheveled shell of a woman without a shred of soul left in her body. I stared harder, hoping the youth and innocence might come back to my complexion, but instead two bright brown eyes popped up behind me.
A girl of about five stepped out from behind me wearing a black and white gingham dress with white Bobbie socks and black patent leather Mary Janes. Her hair was plaited in four long pigtails, and she had a huge curled front that acted as a bang. The little girl seemed to be sizing me up, as she scanned her head up and down to get a good look at me.
“You look sad misslady,” she said to me in a happy bright voice. Actually, her sentence was more like one long whistle, as she smiled, I could see that her two front teeth were missing. “My mommy says you can’t be sad in this house, she said to me ‘Reneé there will be no sadness in this house, do you hear me?’” the little girl took a deep exaggerated breath, “So since my mommy said it, you can’t be sad. Okay Misslady?”
“Okay,” I said to the little girl, trying to please her. She smiled wide showing her missing teeth as she turned around and skipped silently up the stairs. I watched her reflection in the mirror bound up the stairs until she disappeared to the second floor.
While wondering where she could have went, I felt a dull tap on my shoulder, “I know this is hard for you“ it was Angela Stone. Her lips were pursed and she looked like she was worried about something. “But if you follow me to the office we can get the paperwork taken care of and this whole situation will be out of your hands.” Nodding in agreement, I followed her into the family room, or what used to be the family room, where a desk and two chairs were set up. “I’m sorry, if I had known you were coming Mr. Banks I would have gotten a chair for you, please sit on the couch.” Angela Stone’s voice filled the room with a sharp nasal sound. I wished she would stop talking so much.